


Never as Vile as You

by HiNerdsItsCat (HiLarpItsCat)



Series: Uncertain Point of View [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet Ending, Episode: s02e21-22 Twilight of the Apprentice, Malachor (Star Wars), POV Ahsoka Tano, POV Second Person, Seelos (Star Wars), Star Wars: Rebels References, Star Wars: Rebels Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 07:26:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16551524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiLarpItsCat/pseuds/HiNerdsItsCat
Summary: Your name is Ahsoka Tano.You knew that one day you would have to confront Darth Vader, the monster who used to be your former master.You didn't expect him to beg for your help.





	Never as Vile as You

**Author's Note:**

> Setting: 3 BBY, during the Rebels Season 2 finale "Twilight of the Apprentice"

Your name is Ahsoka Tano.

You used to be a Jedi. You aren't a Jedi anymore.

You did your best to find meaning in your life outside the Order, only one day there wasn't an Order at all. The Jedi were betrayed and murdered. You were nearly killed as well despite no longer being a Jedi; in the eyes of the Empire, once a Jedi, always a Jedi, unless you joined them as an Inquisitor or something worse.

Everything you knew was upended all over again, but you had come of age during a war and in a way it was like the fighting never stopped. It became a constant in your life: you hid, you survived, you fought back. You tried again to find meaning in your life, without the Republic, without the Jedi, without—

Without Anakin.

That was another constant in your new life: the Republic was gone, the Jedi were gone, and Anakin Skywalker was dead.

Until the day you found out that you were wrong. Anakin Skywalker wasn’t dead. He was something much worse.

* * *

You knew it was inevitable that you would meet again. You knew that it would break your heart.

So many things had already gone wrong that day: you arrived on Malachor, you were attacked by Inquisitors, and then Ezra showed up with a Sith holocron in his hand and none other than Darth Maul at his side. Maul backstabbed all of you the first chance that he got, and now Kanan is blind and Ezra just used the holocron to activate whatever horrible thing this Temple contains.

Of course Darth Vader would show up and make everything even more of a disaster.

Part of you wants to joke that some things never change, but the only way that you’re going to get through this is if you pretend that he isn’t Anakin. He’s saying things like how this meeting was foretold and you can’t believe what you’re hearing because Anakin would never say things like that; he would _laugh_ at something that pretentious.

Then he starts threatening Ezra and demanding that you tell him where the other Jedi are hiding and that’s when you say, more to yourself than to him, that your former master would never be this vile. He agrees and says that he killed Anakin for being weak. You’re almost grateful to him for saying that because it will make this fight so much easier if you can pretend that Anakin is dead.

Plus, Vader being someone other than Anakin will help you believe that you could actually defeat him. You could never best Anakin in a duel.

Vader is just as formidable an opponent. You barely manage to hold your own, and eventually he forces you over the edge of the Temple’s top floor. The fall doesn’t kill you and you know that he knows that, but if you don’t get back up there he’s going to kill Kanan and Ezra. You can already hear the Temple beginning to crumble.

You run as fast as you can and arrive just in time. Vader is so busy trying to get the holocron away from Ezra that he doesn’t see you coming, and you strike him in the face with one of your sabers. His cry of pain and surprise sounds more like a machine than a man.

Ezra is yelling at you to hurry and you are about to follow him back to the _Phantom_ when you hear it:

“Ahsoka.”

You turn to face him and you see Anakin. You see his face through the gaping hole that you put in his mask. His eyes are yellow and his face is scarred but it’s Anakin.

He calls your name again and it’s his voice.

Something inside of you breaks.

You can’t do this.

You tell him that you won’t leave him. Not this time.

The next moment seems to hang in the air forever. There’s no Ezra, no Kanan, no Temple falling down around you. It’s just you and the man that you can no longer deny is Anakin.

In a voice that feels like it’s coming from the other side of the galaxy, he finally speaks.

“Help me.”

The Temple is beginning to seal itself off and Ezra is screaming but all you can hear is Anakin’s plea.

“Ahsoka… please…”

You turn and shove Ezra back onto the _Phantom_ using the Force. The doors to the Temple close.

You offer Anakin your hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

As the two of you leave to find another way out, you can still hear Ezra screaming your name.

* * *

You have done a lot of dangerous things in your life but this might be the most dangerous of them all.

You’re fairly sure that you’re safe from Anakin but you’re equally sure that Vader will kill you. You can’t tell if Vader is a completely different entity or not; it seems like Anakin isn’t sure himself. His speech is strange and his one visible eye is still yellow and you can see that he’s desperately trying to hold on to whatever clarity he regained when you cut open his mask and he saw you with his own eyes.

The Rebellion thinks that you’re dead and you realize that they’re probably going to have to continue to think that you’re dead, at least until you and Anakin figure out what to do next. You certainly can’t take him with you back to the Rebellion: no one can trust him, not even you. They would kill him on sight; worse, they would probably fail and then Vader would take control back from Anakin and slaughter them all. He can’t go back to the Empire either: the second he gets in front of the Emperor, he’ll lose himself and Palpatine will never let him get that close to you again.

You keep waiting for him to do what he used to do, to come up with some completely crazy plan that will fix everything, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what to do. You have to remind yourself over and over that you aren’t his Padawan anymore. If someone’s going to come up with the plan that solves everything, it’s going to have to be you this time.

You swore that you wouldn’t leave him again but you’re only now beginning to realize what that means.

Having the Emperor’s top lieutenant on your side opens up a lot of possibilities but before you can consider any of that, you need to help Anakin regain his stability. He spent the last fifteen or so years following nothing but his master’s orders and his own destructive impulses, and it’s a hard pattern to break.

You think a change of scenery might help: somewhere he could distance himself from his memories as Vader and focus on who he used to be. The obvious place would be Tatooine but his memories of his former home are almost universally unpleasant. You suggest Naboo but he refuses. He can't think about Padmé anymore; Vader poisoned all of his happy memories of her and now they're little more than another way to torture himself and give the Dark Side more power over him. The old Jedi Temple can be ruled out for a whole host of reasons, most importantly because it's gone. Where else was Anakin ever happy, you wonder.

That’s when you get a completely crazy idea. It won’t fix everything, but it might be a start.

* * *

Anakin never met Gregor during the Clone Wars but he recognizes Wolffe immediately due to the clone’s cybernetic eye.

The two former soldiers have been living in one of the AT-ATs that Agent Kallus brought to Seelos a few months prior. You told Anakin that Rex was with them until recently, when he left to help the Rebellion, and for a brief moment the yellow in his eye fades as he remembers his friend and comrade.

It’s a little strange to think of the Clone Wars as a happy time but, given everything that happened in the years since, it’s at least happy by comparison.

Gregor and especially Wolffe are stunned by the revelation that Vader and Anakin are the same person (or at least are sharing the same body) and have a lot of very pointed questions about Order 66 and exactly how much Anakin knew about what was going on at the time. You shut those questions down quickly: not that the clones don’t deserve answers about how their brothers had been coerced into betraying their Jedi commanders, but you know that it isn’t going to help anyone if Anakin loses control and lets Vader take over. You remark as it occurs to you that, in a way, Anakin is trying to remove a control chip of his own.

The clones take a few moments to consider that, then Gregor asks Wolffe how many repairs he thinks they’ll need to make to Anakin’s helmet before he’d be up for hunting joopas.

* * *

The Empire has to know that Vader has gone missing by now. You wonder if Palpatine would even care if his apprentice died; he seems to have a knack for finding more and you know that there are plenty of Inquisitors who would jump at the chance to take Vader’s place.

You hope that the Emperor doesn't try that hard to find him. You know that it's a slim hope: Palpatine put a lot of work into his latest apprentice and is unlikely to give him up that easily.

Anakin continues to drift back and forth in the murky space between being himself and being Vader again. Sometimes his sarcastic streak comes out when you're talking in a group; it's grimmer than you remember but it still makes you smile. Sometimes his posture stiffens and his speech takes on the eerie formality of someone who is trying very hard to sound older; you realize with a shudder that he's trying to sound like Palpatine.

You want to grab him by the shoulders and scream at him to snap out of it, but you know that's not how it works. Some days he makes progress and some days he doesn’t. He’s still Anakin, though, and you hold on to that hope.

* * *

You finally message Rex. You only need six words: _I found Anakin. Come to Seelos._

What none of you knew was that the Empire continued monitoring communications in and out of Seelos after the debacle with Kallus.

Too many ships arrive. Almost all of them are Imperial. Palpatine wants his apprentice back.

It’s too soon. Anakin isn’t ready. He’s already slipping.

You can see how hard he’s fighting to hang on: the hole in his mask is still there and you can see the color of his eye flickering back and forth between blue and yellow. He tells you that once the Empire arrives, he won’t be able to keep Vader from regaining control. He tells you that you and the clones will need to get away from him before that happens.

You refuse to go. You said that you wouldn't leave him and you can't break that promise.

“Ahsoka… please…”

He's running out of time and so are you. There is nothing either of you can do to change that.

A better Jedi would think of the greater good and kill Anakin before Vader takes control again. Anakin would probably agree.

You are no Jedi.

Even if you could bring yourself to make the attempt, you know that you would fail because Vader wants to live more than Anakin wants to die.

You remind yourself that Anakin is dying anyway, but it doesn’t change your decision.

The air is growing thick with sand kicked up by the thrusters of the approaching ships. When they land, it's going to be a bloodbath and Vader will be the one leading it.

You’re desperate to come up with another solution. The two of you have done so many impossible things over the years. Why can't this be one more? The Ahsoka who was Anakin’s Padawan would have complained that it wasn’t fair. You know what the Anakin who was your Master would have said about that.

“I'm sorry,” is all you can manage to say.

“Don't be,” he says. “You gave me time.”

“Not a lot,” you point out. Barely any.

“But it was time that Vader wasn't using to destroy anything. And besides,” he says, “no matter what happens next, he's going to have to remember all of this.” Anakin is trying to sound reassuring and you can tell that it's taking so much out of him to do it.

Rex lowers the ramp to the ship and Gregor and Wolffe scramble on board. You wonder what might be going through his head right now.

After this is over, you won't have to pretend that Anakin is dead: you'll know for sure that he is. You'll know for sure that Vader killed him, even though it wasn't because Anakin was weak like Vader claimed: it was because Anakin was too strong to be allowed to survive, even as a ghost in Vader's mind.

You think about running back to him, about hugging him, about trying some other last-ditch effort to stop all this, because otherwise you’ll have to say goodbye and you don't know how to say it.

Anakin knows how. With the last scraps of himself that he can gather, he manages a smile. “Bye, Snips.”

You don't know when you started crying. “Bye, Skyguy.”

As your ship exits the atmosphere, you feel him slip away.

* * *

Your name is Ahsoka Tano.

Your life goes on: you hide, you survive, you fight back.

You have hope. You hope that things will change, that the Empire will be defeated, that the galaxy will finally see peace.

And, in spite of everything, you hope that Anakin is still in there somewhere. In a strange way it’s more than a hope, because you and Anakin managed to do the impossible, even if it was only for a short time. Maybe one day someone else will find a way to reach him and bring him back for good.

You hold on to that hope.

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you wondering how this changes the events of the Season 4 episode "A World Between Worlds," I tried to leave the conclusion of that scene fairly open-ended (the last line where Ezra is screaming her name could imply that the portal was open), but I'm leaning towards the likelihood that the portal probably opened somewhere else. I mostly glossed over it for the sake of minimizing spoilers-- and because it came too close to accidentally turning into a story where Anakin Skywalker, Human Disaster, ends up in the World Between Worlds, which would deserve a longer story than I could provide in this format.
> 
>  
> 
> Music: Frou Frou, "Let Go"


End file.
